Chapter 6
6
EMMY
‘Dad, are you drunk?’ Emmy blurted, as she stared at him, still too sleepy to process what was actually happening here.
‘No, I’m not drunk. How could you think that at this time in the morning?’ he shot back, offended, as if that was some shocking stain on his character. Strange. Her outrage that he’d been unfaithful to Mum and was banging a thirty-four-year-old seemed to roll right off his back, but suddenly he was touchy about insinuations that he may have indulged in a shandy or two.
Wordlessly, Emmy took a step back to allow him to come past her and he charged right down the hall into the kitchen. For a joyous moment, she thought about pretending he wasn’t there and just going to the shower to hide, but the problem would still be there when she got out.
It wasn’t that she didn’t love her father. For twenty-seven years he’d been a lovely, fun, supportive, caring guy. It was just that she didn’t recognise this current incarnation of the man who shared her DNA, and the truth was, she was still angry on her mum’s behalf. Not because they’d split up, but because of the lies and the affair and the way he’d almost broken Mum. Maybe one day she’d get over that, but right now she was still finding it almost impossible to forgive him.
Her gran, Minnie, had struggled with that too, and she just kept telling Emmy that she had every right to her feelings and the time for forgiveness would come when it was right. Emmy wasn’t so sure.
‘Okay, Dad, I’m due at work at eleven, and I need to get ready and get to the hospital, so you have exactly ten minutes to tell me what’s going on.’
He was pacing up and down. There would be a hole in her white oak laminate at this rate.
‘I’ve fucked up. And sorry, darling, I don’t usually use that kind of language in front of you, but there’s no other word for it.’
Again, slight confusion on the things that would alter her perception of him, but she went with it anyway.
‘I’m scarred for life at hearing such words,’ she answered drily, filling a glass of water from the tap, before taking a large slug, thinking she was going to need more than water to get through this. ‘In what way have you effed up?’ she asked him, going for the PG version and thinking she already knew the answer. He’d messed up in oh so many ways she didn’t have long enough to list them.
‘I’ve been a complete fool. I should never have left your mum. What was I thinking? It was the most stupid thing I’ve ever done. I realised it this morning when the divorce papers dropped through the door…’
That was news to Emmy. She wondered if her mum had received them too, then decided she probably hadn’t because she’d have called to let Emmy know. Or maybe not. Maybe she didn’t want to discuss it. Emmy thought about phoning her, but decided against it – Mum would talk to her about it when she was ready. All of those thoughts ran through her mind as her dad wittered on…
‘Actually, that’s not true,’ he corrected himself. ‘I realised it at Christmas. Fuck… sorry… but, fuck, it was awful. Excruciating. Donna and I…’
‘I don’t want to hear about her, Dad,’ she warned him.
When he’d brought his girlfriend to Gran’s house on Christmas Day, Emmy had almost choked on Minnie’s sherry. In the two years that love’s young dream had been together, Emmy had maintained a strict no-contact rule when it came to the woman who’d knowingly inserted herself in her parents’ marriage. Not that she was trying to deflect the blame. No, that all lay with the man that was standing in her kitchen right now. He was the one that had broken his vows and trashed their family, caused the sale of their family home, then moved into a swanky city-centre penthouse he’d rented for him and his lover. She hadn’t thought for a second that he’d have the audacity to formally introduce his mistress into her life on Christmas Day, in the presence of others, so Emmy would have to sit there and make polite conversation. Ho fricking ho ho ho.
‘Of course. I understand. But the thing is, I only brought her because she said I couldn’t leave her alone on Christmas night, and I desperately wanted to be with the rest of my family, so it seemed like… Another fuck-up, right?’
‘Without a shred of doubt.’ She let that one sit with him for a minute. ‘The thing is, Dad, you can’t be with the rest of your family, because the rest of your family includes Mum. She’s always been the biggest part of it. At the heart of everything we do, every time we’re together.’
He was still pacing. Hands on the hips of his undoubtedly expensive trousers, right underneath what she saw now was a Hermès belt. Not his usual style. Donna must have been very generous with his credit card at Christmas.
‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I want your mum back. I told Donna it was over last night and we’ve split up. Actually, strictly speaking, I’ve moved out. She threw half my clothes out the window and took a screwdriver to my tyres. I had to get a taxi here. I dropped my bags off at a hotel on the way here.’
Emmy was well aware that her jaw had dropped, but she’d apparently lost the capacity to close her mouth. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be. No way was her dad standing in her kitchen, telling her that his life had descended into the kind of stuff people posted online after they’d secretly filmed their neighbours having a domestic.
Summoning all her strength, she somehow recovered her power of speech and also her anxiety about her time schedule. ‘Okay, Dad, this is all too much for me right now and I really am going to be late for work, so I tell you what. You stop pacing, make a coffee, try to process your thoughts, and I’ll go get ready, then you can come with me while I drive to work, and we can talk on the way. You can jump in a taxi at the hospital to get back to your hotel. There are always loads at the rank outside the main entrance.’
‘Okay. Sounds like a plan.’
Satisfied that she’d distracted him and talked him down for the moment, she made for the door. She’d take the win, however temporary.
Taking two stairs at a time, she raced up to the en-suite bathroom, tied her mass of red waves back into a bun and jumped into the shower, careful to keep her hair out of the spray. She didn’t have time to wrestle with hairdryers and straighteners this morning.
After drying off, she pulled a fresh set of scrubs out of the wardrobe and put them in the backpack she used for work every day, then threw on her dark grey jeans and a black Merino wool jumper. Suede boots and a leather jacket went on next, before she dabbed on a bit of lip balm and shook out her hair. No time for cosmetics this morning. She shoved her make-up bag into her backpack in case she changed her mind later, then grabbed her phone and hospital ID from the bedside table.
At the door, she stopped, running through her pre-work checklist in her mind. Okay. She had everything she required. Except perhaps her emotional equilibrium and the capacity to deal with what this day was throwing at her so far. And it was only 10.30a.m.
Back downstairs, she grabbed her car keys from the console table in the hall, then summoned her dad from the kitchen. He seemed slightly calmer as he followed her out, clutching his mug of coffee. If he so much as spilled a drop of that in her car she’d have yet another thing to add to her current list of paternal furies.
She waited until they were out of her cul-de-sac and onto the main road that would take them most of the way to the hospital, before she could focus enough to restart the conversation.
‘Okay, Dad, let’s get this straight. You’ve split with Donna, and you want Mum back. Are you absolutely sure about this? It isn’t just a fall-back plan because things aren’t working out with you and your girlfriend?’ Just saying the word ‘girlfriend’ made her cringe, but it was kinder than the more accurate ‘mistress that replaced my mother.’
‘No! Definitely not. That’s why things aren’t working out with Donna – it’s because I’ve realised that the only woman I’ve ever truly loved is Ailish. And I still do. Honestly, Ems, I feel like I’ve just woken up from a two-year bender with the worst hangover ever and full of absolute horror about what I’ve got up to.’
‘Yep, pretty much sums up how I feel about the last two years of your life. It was every bit as bad as you feared, Dad.’ She had a feeling she should be going easy on him and showing some compassion and understanding, but, well, the truth was, she was running short on both of those emotions right now. He hadn’t just hurt Mum, he’d damaged her too, destroyed her ability to trust. If her dependable, decent, loving dad could do something so awful to his partner, then so could anyone. So could Cormac.
She swallowed that one back down for now. One crisis at a time.
Her last comment had shut him up, and he stared out of the window for the next few moments, before breaking the silence with, ‘Do you think she still loves me? Do you think she’d take me back?’
Emmy sighed, weary, then made a real effort to conjure up some softness as she answered him honestly. ‘I really don’t know, Dad. You know, you didn’t just break her heart, it was almost like you broke all of her. She’s never been the same since. Everything has changed. And you did that to her.’
‘I know,’ he groaned, and the angst in his voice evoked just a little more sympathy.
‘I think you really need to speak to her yourself. And, Dad, I’m not getting involved. This is between the two of you.’
‘I understand that, and I agree. I’m going to go speak to her. Today. Now. Do you know if she’s at home?’
Emmy did a quick audit of what she knew about her mum’s movements. Almost eleven o’clock. Visiting time on Gwen’s ward. No doubt Mum would either be on her way to the hospital right now or already there. Shit! She was taking her ranting, distraught father right to her. This had disaster written all over it. The hospital wasn’t the place for them to have that conversation.
‘Erm, I think she’s out with Aunt Rhonda right now. Doing a bit of shopping.’ As her mum’s oldest and closest friends, Rhonda and Gwen had always been ‘aunties’ to her, despite there being no genetic connection. ‘But maybe she’ll be home this afternoon. You could try her then. But, Dad, make sure you’re absolutely positive about this. Don’t play with her heart again, because if you do, I’ll…’ She switched her indicator on and turned off the road and onto the street that led to the hospital car park. As she did, something to her left distracted her and before she could even process what she was doing, she slammed on her brakes, screeching the car to a halt, throwing them both forwards and tipping the remnants of dad’s coffee all over his lap.
‘Christ, Emmy, you nearly killed me. What the hell did you do that for?’
Ignoring the furiously beeping horn of the car behind her, Emmy swivelled around, craning her neck, trying desperately to catch sight of the vehicle that had just passed her and turned right, heading away from the hospital.
‘Emmy?’ Her dad’s voice was raised now. ‘What’s going on? What are you doing?’
Too late. It was gone. And she was pretty sure she’d tweaked a muscle in her neck. Bugger. Damn. Arse. As her dad frantically tried to brush coffee off his lap, she felt a sickening chill deep in her gut.
‘I think I just saw Cormac’s car. But it couldn’t be him because he’s at work…’
At least he was supposed to be.